Sunday, 31 May 2015

E-Commerce
major Snapdeal will allow its users across 200 cities to pay through
their credit and debit cards when they opt for pay-on-delivery option.

"The solution has been developed in partnership with GoJavas. Now
customers can select the pay by card on delivery option, just like they
would for COD. We are rolling this out in 120 cities," Snapdeal
vice-president operations Ashish Chitravanshi told PTI.

In the next few months, the facility will be available to customers across 200 cities, he added.

The service is already available across metros and cities like Agra,
Ahmedabad, Ajmer, Aligarh, Bareilly, Chandigarh, Darjeeling, Gorakhpur,
Hisar, Kanyakumari and Ooty.

"Many times, customers complained
about lack of change or not having enough cash handy, asking the
delivery boys to come at a later time. We expect this facility to help
them in this regard," he said.

Though he declined to comment on
the volume of shipment the company handles on an average, its
co-founder and COO Rohit Bansal said the company is looking at a 10X
growth in the next 2-3 years, which will translate into delivery of
about 80-100 million packages a month. SBI chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya with Kunal Bahl, CEO, Snapdeal signing an MOU in Kolkata on May 21. (PTI photo)
Snapdeal had also said it will invest $150-200 million (about Rs
940-1,250 crore) by March next year on expanding its delivery operations
as the competition in the booming Indian eCommerce market heats up.

In March, it acquired a minority stake in logistics firm GoJavas.

Under the service, GoJavas will equip its delivery staff to carry POS
(transaction) machines to allow users to pay using their credit and
debit cards.

To rein in the rampant use of the battery operated device which is
currently available everywhere from departmental stores to paan shops,
the state Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued show-cause
notices to its importers, distributors and dealers for selling the
product without mandatory permission from Drug Controller General of
India (DCGI) which is in direct contravention of Drugs and Cosmetics Act
and makes the trade illegal.

"As per Rule 122 (E) of Drugs and
Cosmetics Act 1940 and Rule 1945, every new drug product should be sold
in the country with the prior approval of the DCGI. However, import,
distribution and sale of e-cigarettes containing nicotine are not
approved. Since e-cigarettes are being sold in market without
permission, this is contravention of section 18 (b) and 18 (C) of Drugs
and Cosmetics Act. Hence, its sale is illegal," state FDA commissioner
Harshadeep Kamble told TOI.

He added that importing,
manufacturing, selling and distributing e-cigarettes without permission
from DCGI and licence from state FDA is illegal and may result in
imprisonment of three to five years. Mumbai alone has 23 importers and
sellers of e-cigarettes who were issued notices by the FDA on Saturday.

Nicotine is approved for use in de-addiction based chewing gums and
lozenges containing less than 2 milligrams of the ingredient. In
e-cigarettes, the nicotine levels are very high.

"Permission to
sale lozenges, gums containing nicotine less than 2mg are already given
by the DCGI. Nicotine products above 2mg are sold only with
prescriptions from registered medical practitioners," Kamble said.

The sale of e-cigarettes containing nicotine is on the rise and it is
being sold as an alternative to the original cigarettes and mostly
marketed to college students.

"Considering that e-cigarettes
are addictive and their ill effects on the health of the younger
generation especially college students, FDA Maharashtra has decided to
curb the illegal trade," Kamble said

As per the Drugs and
Cosmetics Act there are certain set of rules and regulations for
manufacturing of various drugs and such quality control does not exist
for e-cigarettes. Therefore, the quality of e-cigarettes cannot to be
ascertained. Smoking of e-cigarettes also leads to addiction and it
affects the health badly. There have been demands from various social
quarters, NGOs and doctors that e-cigarettes should be banned.

FDA has appealed to the public that smoking of cigarettes, e-cigarettes
and products containing tobacco lead to addiction and is very harmful to
the health therefore they should refrain from use of such substances to
lead a healthy life.

Thursday, 28 May 2015

Two
critical projects for setting up semiconductor wafer plants, being
pushed by the government, have run into rough weather on account of
"several deficiencies", as pointed out by a high-level official
committee. The projects — by consortiums led by Jaiprakash Associates
Ltd and HSMC Technologies India Pvt Ltd — involved an investment of over
Rs 63,000 crore.

The development may act as a roadblock in the
government's plans to kick-off large-scale manufacturing of electronics
in the country, including that of mobile phones. Although the two fab
units, were cleared by the Congress-led UPA government in February 2014,
the Narendra Modi administration too has been pushing for local
manufacturing of chips and electronics, given the high level of imports.
Electronics and chip making are integral part of the government's
ambitious 'Make in India' project.

The official-level panel
has, however, found the detailed project reports (DPRs) submitted by the
two consortiums "non-satisfactory", said sources familiar with the
development. "The two consortia have not been able to fulfill the
conditions required to begin the projects," an official source told TOI.
"They are yet to submit some 'other documents', which are considered
essential to demonstrate their commitment to the projects."

Apart from the DPR, the Letter of Intent (LoI) issued to the two
consortia had asked them to furnish additional documents related to
incorporation of a special-purpose vehicle (SPV), injection of 25% of
the equity funding by the promoters in the Phase I, providing proof of
legal possession of adequate and suitable land, and furnishing
performance guarantee agreements with the government. The two consortia
have not complied with these additional requirements.

Jaiprakash Associates had partnered American giant IBM and Tower
Semiconductor Ltd of Israel for its project which was to come up near
the Yamuna Expressway in Uttar Pradesh at a cost of over Rs 34,000
crore. HSMC Technologies had partnered ST Microelectronics and Silterra
Malaysia for the Rs 29,000 crore project, which was to come up in
Gujarat.

The sources said the two consortia have not been able
to provide a response to the queries raised by the government. The
Jaiprakash Associates-led group has sought certain changes in the terms
and conditions of the LoI, while the HSMC Technologies consortium has
requested that they may be given time till the end of July to respond to
the government's queries. The last date for submission of the documents
as well as a response to the queries was till March 31, 2015.

Establishment of fab manufacturing units is seen as a pre-requisite for
having a full-fledged electronics production set-up in the country.
These will have a big impact on the development of electronics system
design and manufacturing eco-system. Also, their local production is
seen as crucial in order to stimulate the flow of capital and
technology, create employment opportunities, help higher value addition
in the electronic products manufacturing and reduce dependence on
imports.

A delay in these two projects could be a blow to
government's 'Make in India initiative that banks on promotion of local
manufacturing of components.

The government had offered many
incentives to encourage companies to enter fab manufacturing business.
These included a 25% subsidy on capital expenditure and tax
reimbursement as admissible under Modified Special Incentive Package
Scheme (M-SIPS) Policy. It also allowed an exemption of basic customs
duty for non-covered capital items as well as 200% deduction on
expenditure on R&D. The incentives also promised an interest-free
loan of approximately Rs 5,124 crore.

As per government
projections, the proposed FAB units were to create direct employment of
about 22,000 and indirect employment of about 1 lakh.

Wednesday, 27 May 2015

Apple's
iMessage platform has been subject of a new bug that shuts down your
entire iPhone after receiving a particular message.

The
message, whose second half is in Arabic, can send your phone into a
reboot no matter what task it is performing -- it's proved very
frustrating for some users and it's not certain what the long term
effects are.

Here's the fix: head into your Settings app, then
the Notifications tab, Messages and then switch off the slider called
"show on local screen and under "alert style when unlocked" choose
"none".

It's a pretty simple fix but it means if you're sent
any more pesky iMessages you're not going to be sent into the reboot
again. Over and over
We contacted Apple for some comment on the matter and the response
suggested Apple can't see the problem on their end, but that's
apparently not the case for many people who have taken to the internet
to confirm the bug,.

Hundreds of forum users are reporting the
issue. JoeyTheBoey on Reddit said, "I have an un jailbroken iPhone 6 and
it resprings my phone, but only if I'm not in the messages app, then it
will show the message notification badge when I get back in."

Jjc123cj on Reddit said, "Don't test this on your iPhone 6! I sent it to
myself and now my messaging app crashes when I try to open it ):"

Apple News on Twitter has spoken to Apple's senior engineers who
admitted they know there is a problem and said that they are hard at
work trying to fix it.

Tuesday, 26 May 2015

Taxi
hailing app Uber's run rate of gross transactions in India is close to
Rs 400 crore now, and estimates made on the basis of figures sourced
from Paytm—Uber's sole payment channel in the country — indicate that
this run rate will cross Rs 1,000 crore by the end of this year.

Run rate is the annualization of the last month's revenue, and is a
measure that fast growing transaction-based startups use. Sources in
Paytm that TOI spoke with said the taxi sector contributes around 5% of
the gross merchandize value (GMV) of the transactions on the company's
platform, and that Uber accounts for 80% of the taxi sector transaction
value. Paytm on Tuesday announced that the digital wallet's annualized
GMV run rate has crossed $1.5 billion (around Rs 9,450 crore). A
back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that Uber would account for about
Rs 400 crore of that.

Paytm sources also said the taxi segment
was one of the fastest growing segments for the company, and was
expected to grow to 10% of the GMV by the end of 2015. Paytm founder
Vijay Shekhar Sharma has been maintaining that the Noida-based firm will
hit $4 billion in GMV by the end of the year. Uber was Paytm's first
taxi customer, but it has since signed on several more —Savaari,
Bookmycab, MegaCabs. On Tuesday, it also signed on TaxiForSure. So
Uber's share in Paytm's taxi collections could drop from the 80% now.
But even if it drops to just 40%, its run rate of gross transactions
will cross Rs 1,000 crore by the end of the calendar year. For cab
aggregators, transaction value is not the same as revenue. Aggregators
get 20% or less of the collections, with drivers getting the rest. That
would mean Uber's revenue is less than Rs 80 crore.

Asked about
the run rate of gross transaction value, Uber's communications lead for
South Asia Karun Arya said, "We don't ever share this type of data
externally. All I can tell you is that the figure you have is grossly
inaccurate."

Monday, 25 May 2015

While
food-search startups such as Zomato and Foodpanda are rushing to
establish themselves as tech companies, the largest foreign-food chain
in India, Domino's Pizza, might give them tough competition. The
American restaurant chain has been investing heavily in technology here
and currently around 30% of its business, around Rs 250 crore, comes
from online, up from 16% last year. What's more, the company is aiming
to ramp up the contribution from its online business to 50%, which will
allow it to reduce telecom and manpower costs at its stores.

"The biggest competition for us is food tech startups like Zomato and
Foodpanda. They have managed to increase the reach of many restaurants,"
said Harneet Singh Rajpal, senior VP (marketing) at Domino's Pizza
India.

The pizza maker wants a large slice of social media too.
While in the US, it is in talks to launch a Twitter store, in India it
will roll out a Facebook store that will allow 6.5 million of its fans
to order food directly from Facebook without being directed to a parent
website. "At present, if you have to order on Facebook you will be taken
to the Domino's e-commerce page. But the idea is why take someone away,
when somebody on that platform is already engaging with you," said
Rajpal. "In the future, we will try Twitter too."

At present,
home-delivery is just 18% of the entire food services market in the
country, while the rest is dine-in. In contrast, Domino's business is
equally split between both. Rajpal said Domino's goal is to convert its
home-delivery orders into online orders because data shows consumers not
only order more online, they order more frequently too. "Online, the
consumer can look at the whole menu and see the total bill size. This
helps him make correct choices, which is sometimes not possible over the
phone," said Rajpal.

Domino's digital marketing spends have
increased significantly over the last two years, from around 5% to 25%.
Its budget for social media, within digital, has risen to around 22%
from under 5% three years ago. On the flipside, increased digital spends
have helped the pizza chain optimize returns on marketing investments
and trim down discounting spends. "Earlier, whenever we didn't get good
sales, we thought sending out discount coupons will get us more orders.
But now we know better. For instance, during snacking time, a customer
who is hungry and orders a subway is not even looking for a discount,"
said Rajpal.

Domino's India has gathered data of around 20
million consumers and bucketed it into 570 categories, based on
parameters of consumer behaviour. "I know the buckets I need to be
investing in to drive business. Around 20% of my customers give me 80%
of my business. So, on the day I launch a new pizza, it makes more sense
for me to go to only those two million people with the new product
instead of sending discount coupons to everybody around the country,"
said Rajpal. "There's a program which runs all the data across 900
restaurants, across the 570 customer profiles and would create targeted
marketing programs for each set of consumers. So, today, when we do our
direct marketing it is actually one on one."

According to a senior official, government will release Expression of
Interest (EOI) for the project by the end of this month followed by
Request for Proposal (RfP) in June with the work to be awarded by July.

Around 150 companies from around the world have expressed interest in the project, the official said.

Senior officials said that website browsing, social media websites
(Facebook/Twitter), e-mail and Whatsapp and other basic services will
remain free while a user will have to pay for watching videos, video
chat and downloading content.

"We will work on ensuring a
minimum speed of 512Kbps to each user to make it a better experience. We
will be very strict on user experience and uninterrupted service," said
the parliamentary secretary to minister of IT, Adarsh Shastri.

The government is considering fixing the data usage to 50MB per day but a call is yet to be taken in that regard.

"We will not fix a time but will restrict bandwidth. Internet will be
charged on the basis of data usage per day. Once the data limit is
exhausted, users can avail the service by paying for extra usage. Every
day the system will be reset," Shastri said.The
Information Technology department is in the process of identifying 1,000
places along with the Ground Water Survey and Development Agency (GSDA)
for setting up hotspots in the first phase of implementation.Officials said they have also studied the existing system in place in cities like Stockholm, Barcelona, Shanghai and Singapore.

"International projects were state-sponsored models but ours is dynamic
so the government can get revenue from the services," Shastri said.

Talking about the revenue model, Shastri said, "This will be a
first-of-its-kind project to be tested on such a large scale. In Delhi,
there are around 2 crore wireless devices which can access Internet. If
at any point, 25-30 per cent people access Internet, it means
approximately 50 lakh users."At
present, Shanghai has the largest model which caters to 4.5 lakh people.
But with 50 lakh users, we have large avenues for monetisation. We can
also categorise the content being accessed, etc, which provides a big
scope for targeted advertising," said Shastri.

The government plans to set-up 50,000-80,000 hotspots across Delhi as part of the free Wi-Fi endeavour.

"Delhi is spread across an 1,463sqkm area, we will cover markets,
parks, metro stations and high density areas. We will cover 60 per cent
of Delhi.

"Residential areas, green belts, farm belts and rural belts will not be covered.

"As it is a public Wi-FI, it will be available only at public places.
An access point (AP) covers a 50sqm area, so multiple APs will be
installed in one area," added Shastri.

In
a market hot for fitness apps and wearable devices, the ones developed
by Indians for Indians are giving imported devices a run for their
money.

Finding fitness is like finding religion.

There you are, adrift in a sea of im moral carbohydrates and fats,
knowing that you need saving but are not able to do anything about it.
Half-hearted at tempts at recovering your soul from its inertia,
resolutions to be a better person that go up in smoke at the first sight
of a bowl of ice-cream -nothing is able to offer you the hope of
permanent redemption. And then, suddenly, you find fitness, or fitness
finds you. Things fall into place, your life has purpose, and you look
back with a shudder at your ungodly days when you would sleep till 9 am
instead of going for a run.

For Vishal Gondal, the founder of
fitness technology company GoQii, which is based out of California and
Mumbai, the moment came a few months after he had sold his successful
start-up Indiagames to DisneyUTV Digital. "I used to be a national
volleyball player in school. But the startup life, with its irregular
hours, stress and junk food got to me and I became completely unfit.
After I sold Indiagames, I realized I had to do something about it, and
got into fitness devices," says Gondal. He tried several wearable
fitness and activity trackers from global brands like FitBit and
Jawbone, but he realized that they only started working for him when he
used the data collected by the devices to get personalized diet and
exercise advice from a friend, who was a running coach in California. "I
was travelling a lot at that time, and I would send him all the data
and inputs, and he would give me feedback, "says Gondal. It worked, and
today he has run 10 half-marathons and four ultra-marathons.

His personal journey inspired Gondal to start GoQii, and he took the
lesson from his experience -that data means nothing without somebody
trained to interpret it -pretty seriously. GoQii is subscription-based
and once subscribed to, you get a band and a personal coach. Users can
also download the app on their smartphones and sync it with the band,
which monitors physical activity as well as sleep patterns. This is
recorded by the band while a coach at the back-end keeps tabs and
suggests diets, exercise routines and changes in sleep patterns. The
brand aims to have 1,000 experts on its platform by the end of the year.

Poised for a fit India movement

GoQii is just one of the Indi an brands at the convergence of fitness
and technology an area global experts say is one of the biggest consumer
technology sectors today. Apps and wearable devices are being used by
millions of people around the world to monitor everything from the
number of calories consumed versus those burnt, heart rate, blood
pressure and even menstrual cycles and ovulation days. India, where the
fitness fever is just India, where the fitness fever is just about
catching on, presents a huge market for these apps and devices, and
several entrepreneurs have taken the leap into creating startups that
provide technology-based fitness solutions.

"Yes, I'd say India
is on the brink of a fitness revolution. The kind of energy and
enthusiasm I can see on our platform shows that Indians are getting
serious about fitness. It's not just about morning walks around the park
anymore," says Roshini Gilbert, director of services and training at
HealthifyMe, a Bangalore-based startup that provides fitness solutions
through a free app that monitors calories and activity, and a pro
version that connects users to fitness trainers and nutrition experts.

HealthifyMe was started by Sachin Shenoy and Tushar Vashisht, a former
investment banker who quit his job in the US to join the Unique ID
project with the GoI. During the project, Vashisht gained around 18 kg.
While trying to reverse his lifestyle, he started tracking his diet
-this ultimately led to the birth of HealthifyMe. Shenoy and Vashisht
realized that for Indians, it is virtually impos sible to track calories
on Western apps because home made Indian food is not calorie-defined,
and feeding the number of calories into trackers becomes a matter of
guesswork.

With the help of nutritionists, the company first
created a huge data base of Indian food and defined the number of
calories by serving size, making it easier for users to log the number
of calories consumed in a day .

The next step was to connect
users to experts, such as Gilbert and her team, who engage with users on
a daily basis and provide training and diet advice keeping in mind the
user's routines, habits, likes and dislikes, and are available via
in-app messaging, audiovideo chats, and textWhatsApp communication. "For
Indians, personal interaction is of paramount importance. We, as
Indians, like assisted models, not self-service models," says Vashisht.

"Unlike in the West, where fitness enthusiasts are largely
self-motivated, Indians like group activities, or want to be told what
to do. The personal touch is important to them," says Gilbert, which is
where the Indian-developed apps may have an advantage over early
entrants like global brands FitBit, Jawbone, Garmin and Misfit. At this
point, the market is also being flooded by inexpensive fitness trackers
from Chinese brands such as Xiaomi. How can Indian brands distinguish
themselves?

Good karma and brownie points

Innovation and personalization are key, says Gondal. For instance, not
only does GoQii connect users with experts, it also offers a Karma
points system. "The activity monitored by your Goqii band converts into
Karma points, which are converted into cash that are donated to a
charity partner. The more you exercise, the more money you can give to
the needy ," explains Gondal.

Another Bangalore-based
fitness-tech company, 2mpower Health Management Services, also offers a
points-based rewards system for working out to clients who sign up with
its GetActive platform and use its device. Users get something called
`GetActive currency' which is added to their accounts, so that the more
they exercise, the more points or currency they have to redeem against
purchases at designated stores.

The GetActive fitness and sleep
tracker band, which is customized for each user depending on his or her
BMI, was developed by the company in 2011, and has the largest presence
among corporates in cities such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, and
the NCR region. The company , which has seen 50,000 sign-ups, of which
almost 40,000 are active users, has tied up with more than 35 corporates
clients including Intel, Wipro, GE, Cisco, KPMG, E&Y, SAP , and
IBM, to provide employees of these companies with GetActive bands. "The
bands benefit not only employees, who are motivated to remain active,
but also the employers as they want their employees to be healthy and
seek more efficiency in the workforce.Also, if you have a large number
of users in one company , it helps individuals to reach fitness goals
faster," says M Hussain Naseem, co-founder and CEO of GetActive. Indian
devices have a distinct edge over foreign-made ones, says Naseem. "For
example, if you wear a foreign device and travel by car on an Indian
road, it adds a certain number of steps that you have not covered
because of the condition of Indian roads. Those products are simply not
suited to the Indian environment."

At the end of the day,
however, technology can only do so much for you. Companies can create
the most sophisticated fitness devices -but you still have to wear them
and run. "Wearables are fun to have but I am yet to see a device that
has actively helped anyone stick to their goals over a sustained period
of time," says lawyer Rahul Matthan, a self-confessed gadget freak. "I
have pre-ordered the Apple Watch, prima rily for the fitness features,
but I doubt the watch will create a significant improvement in my
fitness-related activities. All the devices that I have tried offer
little more than an incentive to keep fit -but none of them have lifted
to the level where they offer true and effective motivation to stick to
your fitness goals," says Matthan.

After all, you can't get religion if you don't go to church.

How do wearable fitness trackers work?

Almost all of today's fitness bracelets are based on a three-component
accelerometer that enables measuring acceleration against the three
axes, i.e. start and end of the motion, and its intensity. A regular
accelerometer used in Jawbone UP! consists of two electrically charged
plates and a small counterbalance in-between. When the sensor is still,
the counterbalance is located right in the middle.However, once you
start moving, the counterbalance moves from one plate to another and the
sensor registers the motion. Gathering data about the motion is only
one task. The device should process this data so that users are able to
view it on the screen. To ensure accuracy, makers such as FitBit test
the data against that received by other devices. The ways wearables are
synced with a smartphone are different, too. For instance, Shine and
FitBit sync via BlueTooth -the most popular method. In order to save
battery life, Jawbone UP! syncs with an iPhone via an embedded mini jack
and earphones slot.

Source: Vik Bogdanov, intersog.com

The gym glove

A one-year-old Bangalore-based tech startup, Oxstren, is developing a
product that it claims will put India on the wearable tech map. The team
at Oxstren is developing a `smart gym glove', which identifies
exercises, evaluates exercise forms, measures force, analyzes grip and
seamlessly tracks all fitness activities, while providing useful
biometrics such as Real Time Heart Rate, Respiration Rate, Hydration
Levels, along with an inbuilt Diet Tracking app. "These gloves analyze
the grips in different exercise forms and calculate the forces exerted
and resisted, and identify the exercises done by the user, be it a bicep
curl or a bench press. This not only converts into the most extensive
fitness tracking, but also aids the user during a workout to analyse and
evaluate exercise forms via our algorithms," says founder and CEO of
Oxstren, Pratik Saraogi

High on demand

We have seen wearable fitness devices consistently rising in popularity
since we launched the category on amazon.in last year. In the recently
concluded Amazon India Great Summer Sale, we had participation from
various brands (Garmin, GOQii, Mymo) for a wearable tech store-specific
promotion and it performed extremely well. We saw the first boom around
Diwali last year, when we launched GOQii. This was followed by the Polar
Loop, which became the most popular item on the sports page in
January.Brands like GOQii and Polar consistently figure amongst top
brands in sports. With recent launches from Garmin, ERI, Mymo and a few
other products in the near future, this is a category bound to grow at a
fast pace Pankaj Jathar | Category Leader, Sports, Amazon India

Friday, 22 May 2015

Frederic
Durand-Baissas says Gustave Courbet's oil on canvas of a woman's
genitalia deserves to be shared. But Facebook disagrees and has removed
his profile for breaching the social network's nudity ban.

And
so the battle over Durand-Baissas's right to posting an image of the
painting on the social network has continued for almost four years.
Other Facebook users have posted Gustave Courbet's 'The Origin of the
World' — only to be told to take down the painting.

Now Durand-Baissas is demanding 20,000 (£14,000) in damages and the right to have his profile reinstated.

Key to the battle is where the case is heard. Durand-Baissas wants it
to be in Paris, where the Musee d'Orsay, which houses the work is
located. Facebook has sought the case be heard in California, appealing
an earlier ruling ordering a French hearing.

Facebook disabled
Durand-Baissas' profile after receiving a complaint in 2011. The
artwork, painted in 1886, was part of a link he shared, redirecting to a
documentary on the history of 'The Origin'.

The teacher told
Europe 1 radio station that he was "fighting to defend Courbet,
condemned by the Americans". His lawyer, Stephane Cottineau, said his
client felt he was a victim of "prejudice" and had been treated "like a
pornographer". Securing a French hearing, he said, was the "first of
David's victories over Goliath".

Country's
largest bank SBI has signed pacts with e-commerce player Snapdeal and
digital payments firm PayPal for providing cheaper loans and
cross-border transaction facility to small and mid-sized businesses.

Under the 'Snapdeal-Capital Assist' programme, sellers or manufacturers
on its platform will be able to access liquidity at attractive rates
from SBI, with women entrepreneurs getting a further concession of
0.25%. Besides, no collateral will be required for loans up to Rs 1
crore.

"It is a partnership of the equals in which the bank
will provide financial assistance to sellers on e-commerce platform,"
said SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya, who was present at the MoU
signing with Snapdeal.

She said SME sellers were being constrained by liquidity problems and were not being able to ramp up their businesses.

"Even if a business is good, if liquidity is not there then it will not survive," Bhattacharya told reporters here.

Snapdeal CEO Kunal Bahl said the deal will help small businesses as
they find it difficult to provide adequate collaterals while seeking
loan through the normal route.

"Under the scheme, no collateral would be required for loans up to Rs 1 crore," he said.

Nearly 65% of SBI's business is from alternate channels including digital.

The bank also tied up with PayPal for facilitating secured and
convenient cross-border transactions for SBI's 9 lakh SME customers.

State Bank of India managing director B Sriram said the MoU with PayPal
will be for cross-border transactions and it will also look at domestic
payments matter in future. It will also explore opportunities in
e-governance areas.

Country manager of PayPal Vikram Narayan
said the company was operating in 203 countries and handles 11.5 million
transactions a day.

In future, PayPal would explore opportunities in e-commerce and m-commerce space in India, he said.

Yesterday, SBI had signed an MoU with Amazon to develop payment and commerce solutions for customers and small businesses.

Wednesday, 20 May 2015

IT
services company Igate is going to delist from the Nasdaq less than a
month after French major Capgemini agreed to acquire it in a $4.04-bn
deal.

The US-based company, with most of its workforce in
India, said it will apply for termination of registration of the company
common stock under the Exchange Act after the merger and will cease to
make filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The merger is expected to take place during the third quarter of this
calendar year. Igate retained BofA Merrill Lynch as financial advisers,
who informed the company's board of directors that Capgemini had
confirmed an all-cash offer price of $48, despite certain negative
findings in due diligence, but proposed a termination fee of 4% of
equity value.

TOI was the first to report on the acquisition,
and the possibility of Capgemini taking Igate private in its April 23
edition.After delisting, Igate will become a subsidiary of Capgemini
North America. Igate will cease to exist as a publicly traded company
after nearly two decades of having gone public in 1997.

Founded
by two Indian-Americans - Sunil Wadhwani and Ashok Trivedi - Igate was
born under a different name Mastech. In 2000, during the dotcom boom,
the founders rechristened Mastech as Igate and followed it up with
business model changes to become a $1.2-billion IT services firm with
33,000 employees.

"Under the terms of the merger agreement, the
company's shareholder would receive $48 per share which is 22% premium
over the closing price of shares of company common stock on February 19,
2015, the last trading day before our board of directors received
Capgemini's initial indication of interest," the company said in a
recent filing with the SEC.

The merger consideration will be paid in cash. Shareholders would not have equity interest in parent company.

Capgemini said it will buy the 25% stake held by the two founders, and
the 29% stake held by Apax Partners, which financed the Patni
acquisition. The founders get $1 billion, and Apax, which had invested
$380 million, will take home around $1.2 billion.

Capgemini and
Igate together will have 12.5 billion euros in revenue this year, an
operating margin of 10% and 1.9 lakh employees. Capgemini gets 70% of
its revenues from Europe, unlike most global IT services companies that
get much of their revenue from the US, the world's biggest outsourcing
market.

Tuesday, 19 May 2015

Google and Twitter have announced a partnership to display tweets in search results, renewing a tie-up that ended in 2011.

The move will allow Google to get more real-time results in its search queries, and help Twitter boost engagement after a period of sluggish user growth which has weighed on its stock price.

"We're excited to team up with Google to bring Twitter's unique, real-time content to Google's search results," said Twitter vice president Jana Messerschmidt, yesterday.

The deal will start with search results within the Google app and mobile Web, with a desktop version coming, said Messerschmidt, adding that the feature is due to reach more countries "in the coming months."

"For example, if you're interested in hearing more from Taylor Swift, a quick search on Google will pull up her most recent tweets," she said in a blog post.

"Or, if you're a TV buff, a search for #Madmen will bring up the most relevant news and Tweets about Sunday's series finale."

The two firms had a similar arrangement dating back to 2009, but tweets disappeared from Google search results in 2011.

"It's a great way to get real-time info when something is happening," Google product manager Ardan Arac said in a separate post.

"And it's another way for organisations and people on Twitter to reach a global audience at the most relevant moments."

Microsoft's Bing search engine has a similar function of integrating Twitter messages.

Danny Sullivan of the tech blog Search Engine Land said the deal calling for a graphical display of tweets may give Twitter more traffic, if not revenue.

"It's important to note that this is NOT tweets coming into Google for the first time, or the first time since the last formal deal ended," he said in a blog post.

"Tweets have continued to be in Google since that last deal. The new deal just allows for more of (that) and with deeper integration."

Monday, 18 May 2015

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is turning out to be a savvy social media superstar whose online postings, banal on the face of it, are reshaping his public image as a technology-capable leader aligned with the aspirations of a new Indian modernity, a US study has said.

In a paper titled "Banalities Turned Viral: Narendra Modi and the Political Tweet," University of Michigan scholar Joyojeet Pal says Modi - whose social media following is next only to Barack Obama's (but a distant second) among world politicians - has used a pro-technological discourse to reframe his political image and overcome the fusty baggage of the sangh parivar.

"The capture of social media allowed Modi to cater to aspirations for a modernity that mirrored blueprints from the global North. The BJP no longer stood only for older Hindu men in saffron. Instead, here was a man who could take a selfie with one hand and use the other for a trident when needed," the paper says, adding that or the first time in its history, "the BJP leader emerged as more central to the public discourse than the ideology he stands for."

Pal says the gentle tenor of Modi's "twitter banalities" on global events, carefully crafted and global public thank-you notes, and consistent reinforcement of national development themes suggest no shadow of a man who was once-rejected by the international community and was banned from entering the United States for gross violations of religious freedom.

"The young demographic of Twitter users in India are from a generation that has grown up with little memory with the riots of 2002. The enduring memory of Modi for them will be the political maverick who talks directly to the people, whether through Twitter or via his popular radio and YouTube missives called MannkiBaat. For a party long branded as appealing to constituents of traditional Hindutva values, the use of technology in the party's reimagination has been particularly salient," Pal writes.

Analyzing Modi's social media approach and postings, Pal, an assistant professor at UMich's School of Information, says he has evolved significantly from the time he used it as a chief minister, and has been quick to adopt latest tech updates, such as taking advantage of the video feature on Twitter almost as soon as it as available. He also gives the appearance of composing messages himself unlike Obama, whose messages make it evident it is being managed on his behalf.

During his tenure as prime minister, Modi's tweets have also changed. He posts fewer political statements and more casual messages, such as greetings, condolences and updates of his addresses. ''Modi uses Twitter as a personal signal than for issues, per se. For instance, he goes between 'karyakarta' to a 'mai baap style' (worker to a benign ruler). This is different from say Obama who has kept up with agenda-based tweeting,'' Pal said.

If he keeps it up, Pal says, Modi will overtake Kim Kardashian on Twitter, "and we won't be able to say that we didn't see that coming." Kardashian (in 65th place) has 14.2 million followers compared with Modi's 12.3 million (85th place). At the top are entertainers Katy Perry (69 million) and Justin Bieber (63 million), followed by Barack Obama with 59 million followers.

For
Rajesh Lodha, a Chennai-based businessman into real estate and
financing, building a mobile application all by himself was a little off
his core expertise, though a passable interest in enterprise mobility
had always been there.

But, as mobile application development
platforms evolved to require just the basic of computing skills -
writing functions in an Excel field - to create apps, he quickly jumped
on the wagon to build a private Facebook for his schoolmates to organize
a reunion coming up this month. The cloud-hosted application, shared on
Google Play Store, can ascertain who is coming for the get-together,
collect their addresses, phone numbers and current professions.

"A simple Facebook invite is limited in the sense it can only find out
if a person would come. With this application, data about their
whereabouts and current professions can also be collected. And as a
downloadable app, it can be shared on Whatsapp too, helping us reach out
to as many alumni as possible," says Lodha.

Lodha is among a
growing legion of novice software developers, freelance code-writers,
and non-technology business owners who are showing interest in mobile
application platforms that had originally begun as tools by product
software companies for enterprise clients to build features to their
software.

Companies such as GoDB, ZOHO Corporation, Freshdesk,
OrangeScape, and Noida's Appy Pie have platforms that can be used to
build applications. Now, these platforms have diversified from niche
enterprise relevance to next-door applications such as telling the
neighbourhood gym owner, kirana store manager, and pharmacist that
getting on the mobile to connect with distri-butors and clients is the
key.

Lodha turned code-writer because of XLapp, a platform of
GoDB. With its core focus on enterprise mobility, 15-year-old GoDB
launched the XLapp in April to offer a Do-It-Yourself application
builder for smartphones. "The XLapp works in two ways," says Mahavir
Chand, founder of GoDB, It hosts on the cloud applications built on a
simple Excel sheet.

The app creator needs to upload the Excel
sheet onto the XLapp server, which converts the MS office file into a
downloadable application.

Friday, 15 May 2015

After
State Bank of India announced its nationwide rollout of contactless
payment cards using Near Ffield Communication (NFC) technology, Axis
Bank has said that it will start incorporating NFC technology in credit
and debit cards and upgrade 50,000 point-of-sale terminals to enable
acceptance of 'tap and pay' feature.

Reacting to the Reserve
Bank of India's move relaxing two factor authentication norms for NFC
based payments below Rs 2000, Jairam Sridharan, president - retail
lending and payments, Axis Bank, said, "NFC-based tap-and-go payments
have the potential to revolutionize small ticket transactions in the
country and can help payment digitization. Axis Bank is committed to
catalyzing this new ecosystem on both sides -- by enabling a large
number of merchant terminals for NFC, as well as starting to issue NFC
cards."

He added that over 60% of transactions on credit and
debit cards are today below the threshold of Rs 2,000 and this is likely
to increase with the new guidelines. Axis Bank, which is also one of
the top 5 issuers of credit and debit cards in the country, will roll
out NFC-enabled credit and debit cards immediately and help build
NFC-based card acceptance in the country.

Internationally, 'tap
and pay' cards have caught on in quick service restaurants, department
stores, campus payments ad for cab charges as they facilitate faster
check outs. Increase in acceptance of NFC-based payments is also
expected to reduce cash withdrawals at ATMs.

All NFC-based
cards will be issued on EMV platform and appropriate risk/fraud
mitigation rules will be put in place to ensure security of transaction
and hassle free customer experience. Customers will continue to have the
option of using their card as a normal chip-based card and to transact
in a 'contact' mode even on the contactless enabled terminals, Axis Bank
said.

Thursday, 14 May 2015

When
Aditya Rao, 27, set out to raise his first institutional round of
funding for LocalOye, a home and local services marketplace, he was
confident getting investors wouldn't be tough. Rao raised $5 million in a
Series A round of funding from New York-based investment firm Tiger
Global and Lightspeed Venture Partners earlier this year. LocalOye is a
part of a new tribe of earlystage startups, in hyper-growth categories,
which has mopped up millions of dollars at never-seen-before valuations
in a remarkably short period of time.

In the past year, young
Indian startups, some of which are not even incorporated as companies,
have raked in $3-5 million in funds as investors lay very early bets in
search of the next unicorn - those billion dollar companies which are
not so mythical anymore.

Overnight doubling of valuations,
competitive bids and the use of funds to lock out rivals are the new
normal for the fledgling Indian startup ecosystem which has attracted
unprecedented capital of late.

Early-stage round sizes doubled in a year

Says Rao, who started LocalOye back in 2013, "Startups which boast of
either of these three things are able to command a higher valuation at
Series A- multiple term-sheets and hence VCs to choose from, riding a
wave (being part of a hot industry) or having great traction."

According to startup data collector Tracxn!, the average size of Series A
and B rounds combined more than doubled from $6.68 million in the first
quarter of 2014 to $14.29 million in the same period this year, with a
big bump up taking place in Series B rounds. What used to be
historically a Series A round at $2-3 million is raised at the
seedstages buoyed by an upcoming group of active
entrepreneurturned-angel investors and pureplay VCs entering the
ecosystem at the idea stage, backing teams and not the business.Says
Albinder Dhindsa, co-founder of express delivery venture Grofers, which
raised $45 million in little over two months from Sequoia Capital and
Tiger Global earlier this year, "We are one of the first in what is
going to be a long list of early stage companies that achieve $100
million plus valuation within a couple of years of starting. Investors
are a lot more willing to bet aggressively early now as the market is
very competitive, both for new companies and for investors to get access
to these companies."

Competition fuels soaring valuations

Aggressive fund-raising abilities, shorter time gap between funding
rounds and a go-for-broke attitude of the founding teams are some of the
cachets that distinguish a potential winner from the rest of the flock.
Investors say they are sanguine about the success of a few of these
startups, justifying their expensive deal making, which will offset the
losses made on the ones who fail."VCs are hungry for such deals because
of the large market that exists here. Indian consumers are responding
very quickly to any new service that's better than their current
options. With the entry of newer Series A investors like Tiger, the
competition has increased significantly, again driving up the valuation.
Almost all VCs are clearly chasing only the potential number one or two
in any space," says Anand Lunia, founder of early-stage fund India
Quotient. Over the past two years, as many as 120 startups have raised
more than $3 million without having done a seed or angel round.
Seventeen startups have raised more than $10 million in their first
round of funding without raising any seed capital.This signals that
institutional investors are willing to wager on ventures right at
inception."As an investor, if you have to play in this market, you need
to pay up. The best founders, however, target a valuation that is at
least 10 to 12 times the total capital raised in prior rounds. This
ensures that the business is growing in a capital-efficient manner and
there is sufficient value creation between rounds," says Tarun Davda,
director at Matrix Partners, which has invested in Ola, TinyOwl and
Practo among others.

Getting to the capital efficiency stage
though is still some time away for a majority of these startups. The
immediate goal is to take a leadership position, for which founders say
they need capital and that, too, in abundance. Harshvardhan Mandad, 25,
co-founder & CEO of Mumbai-based fooddelivery app TinyOwl, says if
given a chance he'd like his company to grow in a stable way and without
having to raise funds every two months, a sentiment echoed by many
other young entrepreneurs. But the reality is starkly different for this
fast-growing company which is having to fiercely fight competitors like
Zomato, Food panda and a swarm of other food delivery startups. TinyOwl
will need to build a gargantuan war chest, says Mandad. "We would raise
another big round soon if we have to achieve our milestones like that
of being in 50 cities by the year-end." The one-year-old Mumbai-based
venture has in all raised $20 million already.Echo-effect on later rounds

Another crowded category is the branded budget hotel marketplace where
OyoRooms is one of the well-funded players. Says Ritesh Agarwal, 21, its
founder, "Expensive early rounds do impact future valuations. Having
gone through a couple of rounds, my learning is that investors know what
they are investing in--which is to build a 20x or 40x company . In that
case, a few million dollars extra don't matter since your conviction is
that it'll be a way larger company ." Founders should, however,
consider potential downside risks because of unjustifiable valuations
and also quick dilution of the founding teams' shareholding.

Says Rao of LocalOye, "I've seen many startups raising impractically
large rounds at steep valuation. This can make life difficult for the
startup in the next round because they will have to maintain that
exponentially fast-growing valuation in the next round. And most times,
between Series A and B, the startup hasn't solved every problem out
there, especially that of scale. This results in a down round next
time."

Lunia of India Quotient takes a crack at the future:
"What may happen going forward is that we'll see below-par companies
shut or pivot to a niche model to survive instead of down rounds which
value the company lower than its previous round." Young founders need to
know that the game begins with Series A; it's not even a milestone, and
definitely not the end," he says.

Wednesday, 13 May 2015

End-to-end
encryption is the mot du jour when it comes to digital privacy. In
layman's terms it means that when you send a message from your computer,
it is encrypted from the moment you sent it until the moment it is
received. This means, in theory, that no third parties can intercept the
message.

Apple says it uses end-to-end encryption. Google,
however, is another story. The company has been notoriously vague about
its privacy practices, and a recent Reddit AMA explains why.

Two Google security executives, Richard Salgado and David Lieber, took
to Reddit late last week to answer any and all questions. The American
Civil Liberties Union's principal technologist Christopher Soghoian
seized this opportunity.

He asked, "Why has Google refused to
be transparent about its ability to provide wiretaps for Hangouts? Given
Google's rather impressive track record regarding surveillance
transparency, the total secrecy regarding the company's surveillance
capabilities for this product is quite unusual."

Salgado responded, "Hangouts are encrypted in transit."

This is an important admission, because it shows that Google can get
access to whatever it is that you're sending. Redditor reddit_poly
explained:

"For non-technical readers, this means that Hangouts
are only encrypted on their way between your computer and Google's
servers. Once they arrive at Google's end, Google has full access. In
short, this is confirmation Google can wiretap Hangouts."

Motherboard reached out to Google, which "confirmed that Hangouts doesn't use end-to-end encryption."

This is a questionable policy to say the least, one that shows huge
privacy limitations for Hangouts. And it's especially telling when you
pit Google's policy next to Apple's end-to-end iMessage encryption.

Tuesday, 12 May 2015

Apple
CEO Tim Cook met with a top Chinese official in Beijing while touring a
country that has become the tech giant's biggest driver of sales growth,
state media reported.

Cook met with vice premier Liu Yandong
in the Zhongnanhai leadership compound, the official Xinhua News Agency
said. They reportedly discussed how to promote greater scientific and
educational cooperation between China and the US.

Xinhua said
Cook also visited an elementary school in Beijing earlier Tuesday to
talk about innovation. A day earlier, Cook announced cooperation between
Apple and the environmental group the World Wildlife Fund to
responsibly manage Chinese forests and minimize the company's
environmental impact.

After trying to break into the Chinese
market, Apple has seen spectacular success over the past year,
particularly with iPhone sales in the country. China accounts for 30% of
total Apple revenue, with Chinese sales growing by 71% in the last
quarter.

Monday, 11 May 2015

Japan's
SoftBank unveiled a management reshuffle on Monday, appointing
investments head Nikesh Arora as president and naming him as a potential
successor to CEO Masayoshi Son, as the telecoms conglomerate steps up
its overseas expansion.
The move comes as Son and SoftBank are
battling to make their 2013 acquisition of US carrier Sprint Corp for
more than $20 billion profitable. A sluggish Japanese economy, though,
has forced the company to increasingly look overseas for growth.
Announcing Arora's appointment at SoftBank's earnings conference,
billionaire Son, who is relinquishing the president's post, said the
former Google Inc executive was a "strong candidate" to lead the company
in future.
"Yes. He's 10 years younger than me, and he has more
abilities than me," Son told reporters, when asked if Arora was a
potential candidate to succeed him.
"The last nine months I've spent with him have made me sure of that, but I'm not going to retire soon," Son said.
Arora was hired in July to run a newly created unit called SoftBank
Internet and Media Inc, reporting directly to Son. He became one of the
most powerful Google executives, and the highest paid in 2012, when he
made $51 million in cash and stock.
Arora will assume his new role on June 19.
SoftBank has been weighed down by the costs of trying to
turn around Sprint, which has been in intense competition with larger U.S. rivals AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc.
Sprint, in which SoftBank owns 80%, has undergone a long-haul revamping
of its network, shedding thousands of jobs and triggering a mass exodus
of subscribers.
SoftBank has made a string of other investments
in recent years, including $250 million in privately-held Hollywood
movie studio Legendary Entertainment, and $600 million in Travice Inc,
the operator of Chinese taxi hailing app Kuaidi Dache.
As well
as being the largest investor in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group
Holding Ltd, SoftBank has plans to invest $10 billion in India's
potentially huge but under-developed online retail market.
"We
expect more investments and acquisitions, even more so than now," Son
said. "Going forward, the overseas market will be the main factor for
SoftBank."
SoftBank posted a 9% fall in operating profit for the
year ended March to 982.7 billion yen ($8.2 billion), hurt by the
absence of one-time gains enjoyed the year before.
That compared
with its own forecast of 900 billion yen and was a shade better than
the 980.87 billion average estimate of 20 analysts, according to Thomson
Reuters StarMine.
The company did not issue a forecast for the
current fiscalyear, saying it was difficult to provide estimates due to
alarge number of uncertain factors.

Sunday, 10 May 2015

Search
giant Google is flagging off the second edition of its popular
mentoring programme — Launchpad Week — on Monday. Google has identified
16 Indian startups for the five-day mentoring programme, focused on
areas like product strategy, user experience (UX) and user interface
(UI), technology, marketing, business development and presentation
skills.The event will conclude with a demo day where the startups will
make a pitch to VCs and investors.

Google Launchpad Week, the
flagship programme of the Google Developers Launchpad Program, is
designed to support the local startup ecosystem and to add value to
existing accelerator and incubator programmes. This is the second
Launchpad Week to be held in Bengaluru this year as part of its annual
four-part series. Launchpad's weeklong events are held on a regular
basis in locations including Tel Aviv, Barcelona, Paris, Berlin,
Singapore and London. Last August, Launchpad Week debuted in Bengaluru,
inducting 20 local startups to the programme, which included iReff
Technologies that allows you to find the best prepaid mobile recharge
plan for your needs and Smart Pocket that manages all your loyalty cards
on the phone.

This time, the mentoring programme is opened to
startups outside Bengaluru — three each from Mumbai, National Capital
Region (NCR) and one from Hyderabad — to support entrepreneurial
diversity. Some of the startups who have made it to the programme
include Bengaluru-based furniture rental startup Furlenco, Gurgaon-based
contextual news startup Newsbytes and Delhi-based mobile travel
marketplace SeekSherpa. "We have taken only startups that have dealt
with real experiences on ground. The cost it incurs to the founders is
minimal but they get validation from real customers," said Sunil Rao,
country head - developer relations and startup ecosystem at Google
India.

Rao said that selection process was more stringent this
time with over 150 startups being evaluated to shortlist the final 16.
This was twice the number of startups evaluated previously. "We have
identified startups that have validated their ideas much more thoroughly
this time. They have used the classic product management approach with
step-by-step iteration to validate their ideas. Even before the
prototype, they have done a market study to assess the interest levels
among 200-300 potential customers. The pedigree of entrepreneurs is very
good," he added.

Take Hyderabad-based ride-sharing app Zify
for instance. Its founder Anurag Rathor, went to Ireland to participate
in a global ride-sharing app developers' conference to understand and
gather insights about alternative commuting options that are comfortable
and affordable.

Mahesh Vorkady, the 41-year-old founder of
city-based startup Talkative Solutions, created a communication app
dedicated solely to parents of school-going children. "It encourages
interaction among parents about tuition, school activities and the
challenges they face at school," said Vorkady. He said the startup is
looking to tap into neighbourhood communities or alumni network to
create a social network of sorts.

Friday, 8 May 2015

Having
been born into a family of pandits who organize religious rituals,
Ashutosh Tiwari had grown up seeing the difficulties faced by those in
this extremely unorganised profession. It was with the aim of bringing a
semblance of organization in it that he and his friend Yogesh Dubey set
up a website that enables booking of pandits online for ceremonies. It
also explains the rituals and lists ingredients needed for them.

The Mumbai-based start-up, set up by 25-year-old engineers Ashutosh
Tiwari and Yogesh Dubey, superpandit.com is being mentored by city-based
innovations firm Lemon Ideas. Its services are at present available in
four cities— Mumbai, Nashik, Nagpur and Varanasi— but plans are afoot to
expand them.

"My father was a priest and I saw from close
quarters how the seemingly simple task of having poojas performed
somewhere was often not so easy for both the devotees and the priests.
There was also some amount of mistrust among people about the need for
certain things. From childhood itself, I had thought I would do
something to organize this sector," said Ashutosh. In fact, he had
registered the domain name as an engineering student for Super Pandit
way back in 2010, when he had no idea about how this would be done.

A well paying corporate job followed college but a year later, the
entrepreunial urge became stronger. It resulted in the formal launch of
Super Pandit in June 2014 with Ashutosh and Yogesh at the helm. At
first, it operated as an e-commerce site, selling eco-friendly Ganesha
idols and sweets from famous shops around Mumbai. At this juncture, they
met Deepak Menaria from Lemon Ideas and the journey into realizing the
actual aim behind setting up the website started. 'Fake pandits mint money due to people's ignorance'

Ashutosh Tiwari and Yogesh Dubey launched the website superpandit.com
an year ago to provide online booking of pandits. It has only been a
month since the new, improved version of services started and it has
already attracted attention of the priests as well as devotees.

"Such initiatives would help us propagate knowledge of our religious
rituals. People don't usually realize what to look for in a pujari, no
questions about his qualifications are asked. Fake pandits are misusing
this ignorance as a means of making money," said Acharya Raviraj Mishra,
one of the empanelled super pandit from Mumbai.

One of the
very first customers of the portal, revenue manager Shrikant Sharma is
very happy with the service. "Searching for pandits and pooja
ingredients myself now feels like having to stand in line to buy a train
ticket. This service was like booking a ticket online," he said adding
that it is part of a natural progression that took surprisingly long for
someone to come up with.

Co-founder Yogesh, himself from a
Brahmin family, said, "Hinduism is the only religion that doesn't
believe in promoting itself which is leading to many youngsters becoming
agnostics. It is important to explain to them basics most which have
scientific basis and rational explanation." He informed that the next
stage was to launch in Bangalore, Haridwar and New Delhi.

Trai chief Rahul Khullar on Friday said there should be "no blocking" and "throttling or de-grading" of the internet by telecom operators, a statement coming at a time when the regulator is firming up recommendations on the crucial issue net neutrality and ways to manage over-the-top (OTT) services and internet applications. Khullar said "there can be no debate" on areas which affect the delivery of internet to the masses. Speaking at a debate on net neutrality and the future of digital India, organized by the O P Jindal University, the Trai chief — who will demit office by middle of this month — pitched for "transparency" in managing of internet traffic by telecom operators. "If you do traffic management, there must be public disclosure and transparency so that you are not abusing authority in the garb of traffic management." The issue of net neutrality took centre-stage after Trai issued a consultation paper on managing OTT operators. Bharti Airtel's aborted attempt to charge higher for applications that provide voice services and a plan to create a special platform that provides preferential treatment for applications that pay for it further intensified the debate.

The regulator has received numerous petitions that have pitched for neutrality over the internet and equal access to all types of services and applications.

Industry lobby grouping Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) has said that internet applications that provide voice services, such as Skype, Viber and WhatsApp, should be brought under a licensing regime just like the telecom operators, or else data prices would need to go up manifold.

Apart from Trai, the issue of net neutrality is also being studied by an internal committee of the Department of Telecom. Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has already thrown his weight behind ensuring the maintenance of net neutrality. "We feel that Internet is one of the finest creations of the human mind. It should have linkages with the common man in a non-discriminatory manner," he has said earlier.

Khullar said Trai's consultation did not have any intention to look at ways to control the internet. "Anybody in their right mind would not try to regulate and police the internet... But there are problems and issues that you need to grapple with."

Some of the areas which are being actively looked at include the issue of having some regulatory regime for applications that are providing voice and SMS services, Khullar said. "They are in the same business as the telecom operators... If they are no different, then should be a level-playing field?"

Khullar also questioned the government's ambitious digital India programme (national optical fibre network or NOFN) through which it aims to connect as many as 2.5 lakh villages over the internet. "We could not provide power and water in 40 years, how can you provide broadband?" the Trai chief said, terming the plan as "good for dreams".

Thursday, 7 May 2015

Uniphore
Software Systems, a Chennai-based speech recognition solutions company
and incubated at IIT-Madras, concluded an undisclosed fund-raise from
Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan along with existing investors.

Umesh Sachdev, co-founder and CEO of Uniphore, said the funding would
be used to fuel Uniphore's global expansion plans, especially in the US
market and also to develop their core technology. He added that the
company would like to hit $20-million revenue mark by 2017-18 and the
plans to establish operations in the US would help achieve the target.

With six patents to its name, Uniphore's solutions include voice bio-metrics, virtual assistant and speech analytics.

Wednesday, 6 May 2015

Punit
Soni, the recently appointed chief product officer at India's largest
e-commerce player Flipkart, is a man with a mission. Just three weeks
into his new job, Soni — who had an eight-year-stint at Google launching
various products and helping turnaround Motorola Mobility — wants to
position Flipkart as not only a global tech powerhouse but a company
which attracts the best global talent in the years to come.

"I'm coming to the future," Soni said while talking to TOI in his first
media interaction, referring to his return to India after having spent
his entire professional career in the US. With a focus on enhancing
Flipkart's mobile commerce experience, Soni is already at work and said
consumers will start to see changes on the mobile front very soon.

"We are focusing on getting amazing talent which is global in nature.
Now we are at an inflection point and the world is looking at India as
the big opportunity. Just like younger startups look up to Flipkart as a
role model, now I want Flipkart to do the next thing — bring large
number of people from across the globe to work here and live happily,
both professionally and personally. This should then seep into the rest
of the ecosystem. I think it will happen, it's just about us evolving
ourselves into a more thoughtful international employer than an Indian
employer," Soni said.

Soni's addition to the leadership team at
Flipkart, along with another Google veteran Peeyush Ranjan who was
hired as the head of engineering, is in line with the e-commerce major's
thrust on sharpening its technology play as it taps into talent from
Silicon Valley's fabled tech giants like Google. As one of the world's
most valued privately-held tech companies at over $11 billion,
Flipkart's focus will be on mobile, as outlined by its co-founder Sachin
Bansal, even as it competes with a new set of mobile-first startups.

Admitting to the downside of Flipkart's legacy as a desktop-driven
internet play, Soni said he was watchful of these younger startups. "It
is a challenge. I understand that disruption most likely comes from a
smaller startup. Their agility to do things is phenomenal and that is
what makes them the prime disruptor of large companies."

Flipkart and fashion e-tailer Myntra, which it acquired last year, have
been pushing their mobile apps as smartphone penetration in India
skyrockets. TOI reported earlier this year that Myntra plans to shut its
website altogether with Flipkart following suit as the online retailers
morph into pure-play mobile outfits.

"The conversation is what
truly is a true mobile commerce experience — no one has really cracked
it yet," Soni said. "Today any mobile app is basically a website
condensed into a small little phone with some ability to tap and swipe.
Now compare that to the idea of shopping. I'm trying to build what is a
true mobile commerce experience. If I can build that up in any
geography, it is here in India."

Tuesday, 5 May 2015

In
its effort to go hi-tech, the school education department has launched a
mobile application to monitor construction of toilets across the state.

The app 'Swachh Patasha la', launched on Monday, will keep a check on
the status of 8,583 new toilets being built at a cost of Rs 1.07 crore.

The app will help to monitor not only the construction of the new
toilets but also the dysfunc tional toilets. As soon as the app is
launched, the user has to enter the de tails of the school, including
name, code, management and the head master's mobile number. The appli
cation, available in Google Play, works in three stages. In each stage,
the status of toilets is monitored by uploading pictures. In stage one,
the officials have to upload the photo of the area selected to construct
the toilet. After the foundation of the toilet is laid, the officials
have to upload the picture in stage two. In the final stage, image of
the constructed toilet is to be uploaded.

"Our aim is to
monitor the status of the toilets through technology. In three stages,
the higher authorities can super vise the work without any has sle,"
said T Chiranjeevulu commissioner of school educa tion in Telangana.

The funds for the toilets won't be released until the final image of
the constructed toilet is not uploaded, said officials from Sarva
Shiksha Abhiyaan (SSA). "The application will avoid any mismanagement of
funds since payments will only be released once the toilets are
constructed," said Veeru Pakshi, executive engineer at SSA.

Across the state, especially in districts, most schools do not have
toilets. As a result, many girl students, mostly in higher classes,
dropout of school.

While the education officials would know,
common public may face certain issues in registering dysfunctional
toilets," added Pakshi.

The school education department has instructed officials to complete the construction of toilets by June 30.

Monday, 4 May 2015

The
world's largest smart card producer Gemalto is seeing a growing trend of
banks using contactless mobile technology, or near field communications
(NFC), which is not dependent on telecom companies.
Operator-independent payments are possible because of a technology
called Host Card Emulation (HCE) where cardholder information is stored
remotely in a cloud instead of within a secure SIM card provided by a
telecom provider.

The cardmaker's stance on contactless
payments is significant considering that Gemalto sells billions of SIM
cards. It shows that there are rising opportunities for the company in
the finance space outside the mobile world. In the first quarter of
2015, the company reported revenues of 686 million euros (about $830
million). Revenues from payment and identity segment overtook mobile
revenues for the first time at 369 million euros (over $445 million), or
54% of the total company's revenue.

One big revenue generator
for the company in the banking space is the shift in payment cards from
magnetic swipe to EMV (chip cards). In the US, close to 10 crore cards
are being replaced while in China there are around 50 crore cards being
replaced with EMV. "In India, too, replacement of magnetic swipe with
EMV has begun with credit cards and is also slowly happening in debit
cards," said Atul Singh, director, Gemalto India, in charge of banking,
transport and telecom solution.

The move from mag-stripe to EMV
and to have smart cards for government-based ID programmes has meant
that Indians are likely to hold multiple Gemalto cards and not just one
in their mobile.

Compared to until a year back when Gemalto was
strongly supporting NFC payments where the mobile operator plays the
role of a 'trusted service manager' (TSM) and manages details normally
present in a payment card, the company is now fully supporting HCE by
providing tokenization solutions. Tokenization enables transactions to
be completed without transferring cardholder information through the
network.

"Until last year, if you were talking about NFC
payments, you needed your mobile operator to provide the special SIM
that could store the Visa or MasterCard applet. We were the leaders in
this service and we had built data centers to support this," said Singh.
The company has enabled several banks across the world to move to NFC
payments using this platform.

Singh added that the game had
slightly shifted after MasterCard and Visa started support for HCE.
"Banks are now looking at this solution where they can still offer tap
and pay using the mobile but without depending on the operator," said
Singh. He added that while a hardware-based security was the best HCE
had picked up over the years, perhaps both technologies would survive.

Sunday, 3 May 2015

Telecom
lobby group COAI on Sunday claimed that 40 lakh mobile subscribers have
supported its 'campaign' that calls for Internet-based communication
services such as WhatsApp and Skype be subjected to similar norms that
apply to mobile operators.

The Cellular Operators Association
of India (COAI) said that the "support" has come through SMSes and voice
calls made as part of this campaign over the past week and "the entire
mobile number database of supporters is auditable on request by the
appropriate agency".

This comes in the backdrop of a raging
debate over 'net neutrality' and allegations that telecom operators are
hurting this concept of free Internet access to all by giving
preferential treatment to a select few service providers on their
respective platforms.

Last week, the COAI had launched a
campaign with the slogan 'Sabka Internet, Sabka Vikas', seeking a level
playing field with net-based services like Skype and WhatApp.

The industry body said if the telecom operators are not offered a level
playing field with net-based services, then their businesses would be
viable only by raising data prices by up to six times.

Such high rates, they said, would become unaffordable for a large number of people, denying them access to the Internet.

"The campaign championed the cause of customers choosing what they
would like to access in the web space, benefiting from affordable
Internet packages and with the same rules being applicable to services
as well.

"COAI started the outreach effort to ensure mobile
customers have the freedom to benefit from the power of the Internet in
the way they would wish to, including the choice of platform, device and
technology," COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews said.

The
debate on 'net neutrality' was triggered in India by mobile operator
Airtel introducing an open marketing platform 'Airtel Zero', and TRAI's
consultation paper on whether telecom firms can be allowed to charge
different rates for different uses of Internet data like e-mail,
Internet browsing and use of apps like Whatsapp, Viber and Skype.

Friday, 1 May 2015

The
Central Bureau of Investigation Friday got a new specialized forensic
lab to decipher and recover data from Apple devices seized from suspects
during investigation of cases. The new lab, inaugurated at the CBI
academy in Ghaziabad, will be fully equipped with latest workstations
and software to decode the digital information stored in Apple devices,
said sources.

So far, the agency had limitations in deciphering
Apple and Linux-based devices, which are becoming extremely popular
nowadays, with the training of forensic experts emphasizing on
Windows-based software.

The specialized lab is focused on
extracting information from Apple devices using forensic software from
devices such as iMac, MacBook Pro, iPad, iPhone and iPods as well as
from Linux devices which are basically Android-based devices.

The laboratory has been given forensic tools for cloning, imaging,
password recovery, forensic analysis, internet artifacts recovery to
enable speedy probes, said an official.

"Today, we are
expected to be specialists in the investigation of not only
anti-corruption offences but also in investigation of conventional
crimes, economic crimes, complex financial crimes and bank frauds,
high-tech and cyber-crimes and crimes having transnational
ramifications. This academy has imparted the basic skills and now the
onus is on you to improve upon and sharpen these skills further," he
said.